Kahina (unknown-703) was a Berber warrior queen and supposed seer who led her people against the Arab invasion of North Africa.
Kahina (unknown-703) was a Berber warrior queen and supposed seer who led her people against the Arab invasion of North Africa.
In honor of the spookiest month, we’re revisiting our favorite Womanica episodes featuring villains, troublemakers, magic, and mystery all October. Join host Jenny Kaplan — with a few special introductions — as she takes you back in time, highlighting women like Sadie the Goat, Marie Laveau, Patricia Krenwinkel and more who were ruthless, vengeful, and mystical. The riveting stories of these women are sure to keep you up at night.
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Hello! From Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan, and this is Womanica.
Today’s episode originally came from our “Witches and Saints” month, in October 2019.
Today, we’re talking about a Berber queen who fought against Islamic expansion in North Africa during the 7th century.
She’s legendary for using mystical powers to defend her homeland from invasion.
We’re talking about the one and only Kahina.
It’s unclear exactly when Kahina was born but she lived in the 7th century. Her birth name was something like Dihya, meaning the beautiful gazelle. Kahina is an Arabic title meaning prophetess, seer, or witch. Most of what we know about Kahina comes from Arab Historians who lived after her death and wrote about the Muslim conquest of Africa.
Many of those historians cite Kahina as a Jewish sorceress who descended from Ethiopian Jews. Some say she was Christian and drew her power from a religious relic . Still others say that she practiced the Imazighen faith, an indigineous North African religion in which followers worship the sun and moon.
Kahina grew up as a princess of the Jarawa tribe, a part of the larger Zenata tribe of pre-Islamic North African Berbers. Kahina’s father or uncle was a famous freedom fighter and leader himself. Some stories say that when she was young she married a man who had oppressed her people and murdered him on their wedding night out of revenge.
Obviously we can’t know for sure, but Kahina has been described as tall with long hair she wore in dreadlocks.
As an adult, Kahina became queen of a sovereign state in the Aures Mountains in what’s now Algeria. Since around the year 534, that region of Africa had been part of the Eastern Roman or Byzantine empire. It remained under the empire’s domain until the 7th century. At that point, following the founding of Islam as a religion, Arab armies began a spree of conquests across the region.
Her most famous series of conflicts was with the Muslim Arab leader Hasan ibn al Nu’man, whose armies were on campaign across North Africa. The stories from Arab authors claim that Kahina used her supernatural abilities to fight the invaders. This claim was likely made because the defeats Kahina inflicted upon this powerful Muslim army seemed nearly impossible, and thus must have been related to some sort of magic or sorcery. She was said to see the future and to communicate with birds who could give her advanced warning of invaders.
Kahina beat those forces multiple times, likely reinforcing tales of Kahina’s magical abilities. Then the stories get muddled. Some accounts say that after beating Hasan ibn al Nu’man back, Kahina burned anything that her enemies could have found useful in her territories. In other words, she used scorched earth tactics to ensure they wouldn’t come back. As you can imagine, her allies weren’t particularly pleased about that. So when the Arab armies returned, many flipped sides and Kahina’s smaller army was defeated.
Some accounts tell a different story, suggesting that the Arab armies burned the lands.
Either way, Kahina died. She was either killed in battle, took poison to avoid capture, or was captured and executed.
Kahina’s true life story is a bit of a mystery. That lack of clarity when it comes to Kahina's actual biographical details has allowed her to serve as a heroic symbol for a variety of movements, including anti-colonialism and North African nationalism.
All month, we’re bringing you the best of villainy, magic, and mystery. Tune in tomorrow for another of our favorite episodes.
Special thanks to Liz Kaplan, my favorite sister and co-creator.
Talk to you tomorrow!